


Ashley's Notebook of Sin 3: Mother Xeno

by Havoka



Series: Ashley's Notebook of Sin [3]
Category: Alien Series, Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alien AU, Ash and Jess become moms to about 230493483 alien babies, F/F, Impregnation, Xenomorph (Alien) - Freeform, if you're familiar with the Alien series you know they don't exactly ask for consent, no knowledge of the Alien franchise is required to read this btw, the reason for the content warning is because facehuggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 09:16:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6900103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havoka/pseuds/Havoka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curious Ashley decides to explore outside the boundaries of her human space colony. She unwittingly discovers that the creatures who lurk there have use for humans like her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A New World

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally meant to be erotic but it ended up just really...sad and idk what happened, I'm so sorry
> 
> This fanfic has been updated to reflect the canon last names revealed by Rush of Blood, 10/13/16

Her parents had warned her not to stray too far from their colony. But Ashley was a curious girl, the daughter of two space explorers. The allure of the unknown called to her.

There were no real days or nights on LV-426, since no stars penetrated its thick atmosphere, so she simply waited until her family had fallen asleep. Then, bringing nothing but a backpack with a flashlight, a canteen, and a map, she made her move. The map wouldn’t be of much use once she reached uncharted territory. But it would get her there.

She crept past the lodgings of her fellow moon colonists, noting absently how some of the buildings had begun to fall into disrepair. Humans had been coming and going from this moon for several years now, funded largely by a handful of extremely wealthy families. Following the disappearance of their daughter a few years ago, the ultra-wealthy Davis family had withdrawn their funding. They’d spent months searching for her to no avail. Ashley had heard they suspected foul play and did not trust any of the colonists.

Everything they had previously paid for was now going without maintenance. And it was showing.

Ashley crept by one of the massive, heavily-guarded terraforming devices. Without them this moon would be uninhabitable. Nothing native lived on it according to the Weyland-Yutani research team, who had first given the all-clear for the colonists to settle there years back. Ashley wondered if it was actually true. Could this place really be devoid of all but foreign human life?

It _was_ eerily quiet on the outskirts of the colony. There were no crickets chirping, no critters scurrying, no cats fighting or dogs barking. Just the dull whistle of the wind as it raced across the surface of their protective synthetic atmosphere.

It all felt so…unnatural.

Because no starlight could penetrate the dense true atmosphere of LV-426 it existed in a state of eternal, chilling darkness. As soon as she was out of range of the colony’s standard-issue light fixtures Ash retrieved her trusty flashlight from her pack and summoned a beam of light in front of her. It struck a strange rock formation some distance away. Ashley curiously approached it. The moon was essentially nothing _but_ rock, so it wasn’t exactly a thrilling find, but sometimes the odd formations were cool to look at.

This particular arrangement looked almost like a dried-out geyser – it had high surrounding walls but was concave in the middle, and appeared to plunge deep beneath the surface of the moon. Some sort of really deep crater, perhaps?

Ashley leaned over and peered down into it. Her flashlight did not reveal much – it seemed to descend almost infinitely.

Something shifted behind her. The sound was barely audible, but in the unnatural silence of the synthetic atmosphere it startled Ashley. She whipped around. Her flashlight settled on something large, shiny, and very close to her.

She attempted to scream, but the thing grabbed her before she could make a sound. It slammed her head against the ridge of the rock formation. Her vision swam, but still she attempted to run. The creature seized her by the leg, picked her up and threw her down into the chalky dust of the moon’s surface. The back of her head struck it hard. Her vision ebbed to black as she felt the thing drag her downward, into the deepest darkness she’d ever experienced.

* * *

 

Ashley pried her heavy eyelids open and blinked the world into focus. Everything was dark, but not as dark as she would have expected. A single light fixture hung from the high, cavernous ceiling of wherever she was. It was the same model that was given out to colonists. Had it been stolen from them? This certainly wasn’t part of the colony.

As she regained her senses Ash began to realize she was restrained. Something thick and sticky held her arms and legs apart, and her back was stuck to a wall made of the same foreign substance. This led her to noticing, with a slight flush of her cheeks, that her clothes had been removed. They were scattered, shredded, on the rocky floor beneath her suspended form. Her mouth was covered by the substance as well. Its hold on her was incredibly strong. It restricted her breathing to only her nose, adding to the already-oppressive damp and humid atmosphere she was trying to breathe in.

In the middle of what remained of her clothing sat a large, black, egg-shaped object. It appeared shiny and moist, not like a rock. It was stuck to the floor with the same goo that was holding Ashley. Thankfully it didn’t appear to be moving or anything.

Ashley found herself shaking a little. _What’s going on?_ Was it a human that had grabbed her? It seemed humanoid in shape and size. Maybe there was some sort of maniac running around LV-426 in disguise, trying to get a scare out of the other colonists. Or maybe they were killing people. Oh God, what if she was trapped on the moon with a serial killer? How would anyone know?

She wasn’t sure if she preferred the thought of a human serial killer or a strange, potentially-deadly alien creature being her captor. Both options were terrifying when they had you bound and naked in a place you’d never seen before.

There didn’t seem to be anyone or anything around at the moment. A quick glance about the dim room revealed empty walls full of that same gooey substance, with egg-shaped objects placed roughly equidistant from one another. At the far end of the room she could make out a hollow in the wall. Perhaps a rudimentary sort of doorway.

She attempted to make a sound, groaning and grunting through her pseudo-muzzle. She thrashed and twisted against her restraints as well. They held fast.

As she futilely writhed in her bound state, she caught sight of movement by the “doorway”. A small, slightly chubby, very human-looking silhouette studied her from the darkness.

Ashley bucked wildly, attempting to make as much noise as possible. If this creature was responsible for kidnapping her then they already knew she was there. If they weren’t then maybe they could help her. It was worth a shot.

“Mm! Mmph!” Ashley shouted within her closed mouth. _Please oh my God please help me!_

The creature watched her for some time. Ashley continued to struggle, though she was quickly losing faith that the entity was going to offer her any assistance.

The egg-like object at her feet began to quiver a bit. Ashley froze. The creature at the end of the room ran away.

With a wet, sticky noise the top of the egg-thing unfolded into four gooey flaps, like some sort of visceral budding flower. A bead of sweat trickled down Ashley’s forehead as she watched the strange thing peel apart. Nothing else happened at first, granting her a tiny spark of hope that whatever the thing was, maybe it wouldn’t involve her suffering some horrible fate. She exhaled, but remained very still.

Something poked out of the egg. Before Ash could deduce what it was, an entire small creature emerged. It stretched its pale yellow, scorpion-like legs, taking in the world around it for perhaps the very first time.

Then it let out an ungodly screech and flung itself straight at Ashley.

Ashley shrieked as the skeletal scorpion thing landed smack on her face. It wrapped its long, bony limbs around her head, entangling in her hair, blocking her vision and momentarily suffocating her. Its long tail curled around her neck, choking her with a surprising strength. Ashley writhed and squirmed as the creature pressed itself against her covered face, seemingly trying to get through to her mouth. The tough substance prevented it from doing so, and it seemed eventually to realize this. With a bit of wet, disgusting suction it pulled itself off Ashley’s face and allowed her to regain her stolen breath.

The creature crawled down to her chest. There it investigated her naked flesh, sending a shiver through her. It took its time crawling over her arms, her shoulders, and her bare breasts. Seeming not to find whatever it was looking for, it moved downward.

Ashley trembled as the thing searched her vulnerable flesh. Her grunts and thrashes did not seem to deter it in any way. It skittered down her stomach and then settled at the entrance to her most private area.

Ashley wiggled and squirmed further. The creature did not flinch. It moved down between her forcibly-parted legs and went straight for her nether regions. Its tail wrapped around one thigh while its legs grabbed hold of both of them. It pulled itself toward her until its warm, damp flesh was pressed directly against hers.

Ashley made one last attempt to buck the horrible thing off, to no success. It was coiled far too tightly around her upper thighs to be deterred by such a pathetic attempt.

Ashley felt something probe her inner folds of flesh. Something long and slightly pulsating wormed its way up inside her. She loudly resisted, but the tube-like appendage nosed its way deeper and deeper.

The creature itself began to gently pulsate as well. This helped it to work itself deeper inside. Its rhythmic movements stimulated her body to begin self-lubricating, thinking she was having sex. Ashley couldn’t believe it – she was getting… _turned on_ by this disgusting thing! No matter how much she writhed and resisted the creature managed to deeply penetrate her, and her body welcomed it inside.

Her will to resist dampened by repeated failure to escape, Ash lowered her head and relaxed her body, letting the awful creature have its way with her. Her only hope was that this humiliating violation would be the end of her torment.

The creature moved its throbbing limb around inside her, drawing an involuntary moan from deep in Ashley’s throat. She felt like she should be more horrified by this than she actually was. Of all the human colonists to abduct, they just _had_ to take the one who had actually thought about being boned by an alien before, and had not been entirely repulsed by it…

Something pushed out of the creature. It worked its way up the creature’s pulsing appendage inside her, stroking Ashley’s inner walls and leading to a strange, not entirely unpleasant sensation. She felt the thing emerge from the tip of the limb inside her. It was deposited somewhere deep inside, too deep for her to even be aware of exactly where it was.  It seemed to latch onto her insides – even when she moved and twisted it did not shift within her.

The creature withdrew itself from her and released its grip. After peeling off of her it fell to the floor and curled up like a dead spider. Ashley watched it for several minutes. It did not move.

Nothing else came for her after that. What felt like several hours passed in complete silence. Feeling quite drained after her “encounter”, Ashley eventually began to nod off a bit. She was just about drifting into unconsciousness when the sound of heavy footsteps jarred her awake.

* * *

 

It was the creature who had grabbed her on the surface. In fact, it was two of them.

They were no humans. Though they were roughly human in size, had humanoid limbs and walked on two legs, they were undeniably alien. Their skulls stretched backward to a length Ashley had never seen in any creature before. Their bodies were a dark gray, nearly black and they were shiny, like the carapace of an insect. They had long, serrated tails and lengthy claws at the end of spindly fingers. Their mouths were large and full of fangs, and they possessed no eyes to speak of.

The creatures loomed over Ashley’s defenseless form, clicking and growling to each other before turning to her and fixing her with their strange, eyeless stares. One of the creatures reached toward her with its bony fingers, which were eerily reminiscent of the scorpion-like creature from earlier. Ashley quivered and turned her face away.

To her astonishment, the creature used a single claw to carefully slice off her pseudo-muzzle. As the shorn pieces fell away Ashley sucked in a lungful of air. “Oh my God.” She didn’t even care how gross the air was down there. It was just nice to have full breathing capability returned to her. “Are you letting me go?”

Unsurprisingly, the creatures did not respond. They instead simply cut her limbs free of their restraints and pulled her off the wall.

“Do you understand human language? Can you communicate telepathically?” she decided to ask as they set her down on the ground. She may have been piss-your-pants terrified, but that didn’t mean she’d pass up a potential learning opportunity.

One of the creatures grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward the doorway at the far end of the cavern. Ashley reluctantly went along. As she was led away she cast one glance back at the spot where she had encountered her first alien. It still lay shriveled on the floor, presumably dead. She could only wonder what sort of foreign object it had planted inside of her.

* * *

 

Beyond the doorway lay a room with many stolen lights, generating a brighter, warmer atmosphere than anywhere else she’d seen down there. There were even blankets and a few pillows.

Ashley’s most shocking discovery, however, was the human girl who rushed to greet her. The girl first gave each of the two alien creatures a quick pat on their skulls. Then she took Ashley’s hands in hers.

“Hiya! God, I’m so glad to finally have some company.” The girl grinned. “I’m Jess. Who are you?”

Ashley looked her over, still reeling from all that was happening. This girl, Jess apparently, was just as naked as Ashley. She had a chubby belly, almost as if she were pregnant, and her breasts were large and slightly sagged, like one might expect from a pregnant person. It didn’t take Ash long to realize this girl was the creature that had watched her try to escape without attempting to help. This immediately evoked a bit of wariness in Ash.

“I’m Ashley,” was all she said in response. “Why are we here? What _are_ these, um…” She gestured to the creatures on either side of her, not wanting to risk offending them on the off-chance they _could_ understand her.

Jess smiled warmly. “I’ll explain everything to you. Come, step into my office.” She winked and gestured to a pile of blankets against one rocky wall.

Ashley hesitantly sat down on the blanket pile. It felt odd being naked like this, sitting on strange blankets, talking to strange people all while every bit of her was exposed to the world. As she sat down she felt an unusual bit of pressure in her lower abdomen. _Must be the thing._ She would have to ask this girl just what that weird little creature had deposited inside of her.

Before Jess could join her in her “office” the two creatures approached the other girl. The first of the two opened its mouth, exposing multiple rows of gigantic, dripping fangs. Then, to Ashley’s shock, another, smaller mouth emerged from within its main one. A long, slender tongue extended from this second mouth. The creature knelt and licked at Jess’ chubby belly, coating it with a thick, goo-like saliva. Jess merely giggled in response, caressing the creature’s shiny “skin”.

“You two can come back later, okay? Mommy needs to talk to the new girl.”

Ashley tilted her head. _Mommy?_

The creatures stalked off, leaving Jess and Ashley alone. Jess sat down beside her on what Ash noticed was a Weyland-Yutani emergency blanket.

“So,” she said, “you probably have a lot of questions.”

Ashley tried to avoid looking at Jess as she talked. The other girl seemed completely comfortable with her nudeness. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jess looking her over with a bit of perverse curiosity. Trying not to seem rude, Ashley waited until she was “done” looking her over – then she pulled one of the blankets out from under her and wrapped it around herself.

“What are those things?” was her first question.

Jess shrugged. “I’ve always just called them aliens. They don’t talk, so I can’t ask ‘em.”

“Why were you watching me earlier? Did you know what was going to happen?”

“Oh, yeah…” Jess sat back on the blanket, making it impossible for Ashley not to notice her protruding belly button and stretch marks. She _had_ to be pregnant. “It’s been a while since I had another human down here with me. I guess I was just eager to see ya.”

“You didn’t stop that… _thing_ …it…it violated me…”

Jess laughed a little. Then she laid a hand on her stomach. “Sorry. I forgot how upsetting it can be the first time.”

“Has it happened to you?”

A wide smile spread across Jess’ face, but it did not reach her eyes. “Oh yes. Too many times to count.”

“Are you a prisoner here?”

That question gave the other girl pause. She chewed her lip, stalling for an answer.

Ashley watched her, waiting.

Finally, Jess looked away. “Yes.”

Ashley had no idea if she could trust this girl’s responses. She seemed awfully chummy with the alien creatures.

“How long have you been here?” Ashley asked next.

“I don’t know. A long time, I think.”

“You’re pregnant, right?” Ashley glanced at Jess’ stomach. “We should try to get you out of here. You don’t want a baby born into this mess.”

Jess laughed bitterly. “Oh, you have so much to learn about life down here.”

She lay down on her back, spread-eagled. She ran a hand down over her swollen abdomen repeatedly, a little harder each time. The gooey saliva from the alien helped her hand to glide over the bloated flesh. She shuddered and groaned, arching her back suddenly. Ashley stole a glance between Jess’ legs, just long enough to see something long, bright white and slippery-looking emerge from her. With one last moan Jess pushed the hideous, worm-like thing out of her body. It slithered away before Ash could get a better look at it.

Jess sat up and wiped a bit of sweat from her forehead. Her stomach was no longer swollen.

“Every alien in this hive,” she said, “I gave birth to them all.”

Ashley balked. “W-What?”

“Yep, it’s true!” She giggled deliriously. “Every few days they take me to the impregnation chamber, and they restrain me and set those little spider things on me, and I get pregnant with another one of them. Pretty much every alien here…is my child…”

She turned to Ashley. “It’s crazy. At first I wanted to leave…well, I still do. But every time I give birth to one I’m just…filled with all these feelings…all this love…these things, they mess with your hormones. They make you go into like, maternal overdrive. I could never leave my kids. I love all of them.”

Her tone was sing-songy, like a person having a fever dream. “I’ll find a way out of here,” Ashley said. “And I’ll take you with me.”

Jess burst out laughing. “It’s too late for that, you _idiot._ ” She toppled over on the pile of blankets. “You’re already pregnant.”

Ashley’s throat dried up. Jess rolled onto her side. “The pregnancies only last a day or two. Once you’re about halfway through you’ll start feeling the changes. The way they mess with your body chemistry. You’ll fall in love with your babies, too. And we’ll never, never, never get out of here.”

“That’s not true. We _will_ get out. People will come looking for me – m-my parents will come. They won’t let me just be a – a breeding machine for these things!”

Jess smiled a small, wry smile. “I was the same way as you. Now I have dozens, maybe hundreds of alien babies, and I never want to leave them…”

Ashley got up from the blankets. As she did she felt something twist deep inside her. One hand involuntarily settled on her lower abdomen.

“Did you feel it move?” Jess asked from behind her.

Ashley ignored her question. “I’m going to find a way out,” she declared.

“Good luck!” Jess propped a pillow against the wall and leaned back against it. “See you when you get back.”

* * *

 

There was no way out. The only entrance and exit was the ceiling tunnel she’d been dragged down in the first place. Apparently the aliens could scale the walls to reach it, but there was no way a human without any climbing gear could do so.

Ash wandered down a narrow rock passage, toward a dark room she’d yet to explore. She was halted by three alien “guards”. They snarled at her, but then one leaned over and stuck its face close to her abdomen. It made a clicking noise at the other two, and they immediately cleared out of her path.

Ashley felt another twinge inside what must have been her womb. A strange thought entered her mind. _I’m gonna have a baby._

She shook her head. “It’s not a baby,” she muttered to herself. “It’s a…a monstrosity.”

She stumbled her way into the dark room, feeling for a light somewhere. Eventually she found what felt like one of the stolen standard-issue lights mounted to the wall. She turned it on, hoping its battery was still good. It flickered to life and cast light throughout the pitch-dark room.

Ashley gasped.

The entire chamber was filled with eggs – and in the middle of them lay a gigantic alien. The creature must have been 15 feet tall. It had four arms and a wide, flat head plate much larger than those of the other aliens. It was bound to the ceiling of the cavern by the same thick, resinous substance that had held Ashley, keeping it suspended just above the floor. Extending behind it, in probably its strangest feature, was an unbelievably long, maybe 20 feet or more, translucent sac of some kind.

It noticed Ashley immediately. Turning its massive head in her direction, it fixed her with the same eyeless stare as the smaller aliens. Ashley trembled and took a step backward. “I – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll leave right now.”

The creature lowered its head to Ashley’s level. Its lips were pulled back, not quite in a snarl, but almost in more of a…sneer? It studied her briefly, then huffed its hot, foul-smelling breath in her face. At this proximity Ash could see every detail of the creature’s rough exoskeleton, as well as every strand of drool leaking from its mouthful of fangs.

“I’m sorry,” Ashley repeated, her voice scarcely a whisper.

Though the creature had no eyes to search, Ashley could see intelligence in its facial movements. They were fluid, graceful, almost human in their expression. As the creature studied her its sneer changed into a more neutral expression. It reached a gigantic arm out to Ashley. Ashley cowered.

Instead of grabbing or attacking her, the alien laid its hand on Ashley’s stomach. Ashley stared uncertainly down at it.

The thing soon drew back, raising its head and making a faint noise in its throat.

“That’s the queen.”

Ashley startled at Jess’ voice behind her. The girl soon appeared at her side, gazing up at the monstrous alien before them. “She lays the eggs they use to impregnate us.”

“Oh.” Ashley watched as the queen growled and positioned what must have been her ovipositor just above an empty spot on the cavern floor. A shiny black egg slid out and landed with a moist _thump_. Ashley tried not to look visibly disgusted.

“She came from my friend.”

Ashley turned her attention back to Jess. “Huh?”

Jess stared up at the queen, not meeting Ashley’s gaze. “Before they started doing things the way they do them now, the humans they impregnated were…one-time use. They’d plant the babies in human stomachs instead of our wombs. Then when they were ready to be born they’d just…shred their way out.”

Ashley blinked. “That’s horrifying.”

“Yeah.” Jess shifted her weight a bit. “My best friend, she went missing. I went out looking for her, and I found her, but we ended up down here in the process. I figured we’d eventually find a way out. But before we could she started complaining that her stomach was hurting.”

“Oh God.”

“Yeah.” Jess sighed. “These aliens, they apparently take on some of the traits of their hosts. Like, some of their genetic material. And sometimes I – I see my friend in her. In the queen. She’s super smart, and good at planning things out – hell, she figured out that humans could be kept alive and bred instead of being killed by one birth. She’s clever and calculating, just like my friend was.”

Ashley watched Jess stare, almost lovingly, up at the hideous monster before them. “She’s the reason your friend is dead,” she said bluntly.

“She couldn’t help it. She didn’t ask to be born from her.” Jess’ response was prickly, as if Ash had hit a nerve with the observation. “And now she’s all I have left of my friend. Every egg she lays has some of her DNA, which has some of my friend’s in it. And those are the eggs they use on me and you. So in a way, every alien in this nest has some of my friend inside of it.”

It dawned on Ashley what Jess was getting at. “So these aren’t just your babies. They’re you and your friend’s.”

Jess lowered her eyes, then nodded.

The queen threw her head back and let out a mighty screech. Ashley jumped back. Jess smiled a little. “She’s just calling for her drones. If she goes too long without getting pampered she gets cranky.”

Sure enough, seconds later a pair of lesser aliens bounded into the room. They climbed up onto the queen’s massive form and began licking and caressing her swollen egg sac.

“Hey, I need pampering too!” Jess whined.

Ashley wasn’t sure if she should say something in response. Apparently misinterpreting her hesitation, Jess caught her eye and said, “Unless _you_ want to pamper me?”

“I want to _leave_!” Ashley threw her hands up in frustration. “I’m sorry, but this is all just too much. I don’t want to–”

The creature growing inside of her twisted. Ashley clutched her stomach and cried out in pain.

Jess laid a gentle hand on Ash’s aching stomach. “Are you okay?”

“Not…really…”

Jess glanced up at the queen, whose drones were still tending to her. Then she looked back to Ashley. “Come with me,” she said, offering Ash her hand. “I’ll help you.”

Ashley reluctantly accepted her hand. Jess led her past the queen, to a passage she hadn’t seen before.

* * *

 

“Whoa.”

Ashley looked around at the mounds of stolen human items. Food, bottled water, medical supplies, and assorted odd items, including a tattered teddy bear, were scattered throughout the chamber.

“They bring me things from the colony.” Jess picked up a single, worn out sneaker. “Mostly from the depository heap, though. They don’t know any better.”

“Don’t you miss being back there? Back with your family?”

Jess abandoned the sneaker in favor of the teddy. She gave it a light squeeze. “I don’t have any family in the colony. I traveled here with my friend and her family. I didn’t want to move to this stupid rock, but her family was big into it, and I figured I could go back home after a little while. I thought maybe she and I would both go back.”

Ashley winced as the creature inside her thrashed about. The longer it was inside her, the livelier it was becoming.

Jess must have noticed her look of pain. She crouched down and dug through a pile of supplies. Eventually she pulled out a bottle of something. “Here.” She tossed it to Ashley. Ashley fumbled, barely catching it.

It was a clear container with a few long-expired painkillers inside. “You’re giving me your medical supplies?” Despite her question, she was already shaking two of them out into her palm.

“The pain doesn’t bother me anymore. Take whatever you need.”

“…Thank you.” Ashley swallowed them dry.

 Jess cleared a spot in the cluttered chamber and sat down beside a pile of items. She retrieved a can of orange soda from the pile, popped it open and took a sip.

She’d been too stressed out to really notice before, but watching Jess drink made Ashley realize just how thirsty she was. She sat down a few feet from Jess and tried to give off the hint that she would like a drink as well.

Jess caught on quickly. She retrieved another can from the half-six-pack sticking out of the pile. “Here.” She handed it to her. “Don’t know who thought it’d be a good idea to cart soda up to this place – it’s flat as fuck.”

Jess wasn’t kidding. The soda was warm, flat, and tasted of aluminum. It had probably been sitting in its can for ages.

The creature inside her was still moving around, but the painkillers were beginning to kick in. Instead of pain Ash felt more of just a vague awareness of its presence within. She glanced down at her stomach, which was already bloated to the size of a four- or five-month normal human pregnancy. Every so often something bulged out of it, like a mutant fetus kicking. _That_ still hurt like a motherfucker.

As Ashley winced and clutched her abdomen, Jess leaned over to her. She settled a hand on Ashley’s stomach and massaged it gently. It didn’t do much to alleviate the pain, but it felt nice. Ashley shimmied a bit closer to her.

“It’s so nice to have another human around,” Jess murmured. Her cheek came to rest on Ashley’s chest as she continued to rub her belly. The gesture was strangely stimulating. Ashley ran an uncertain hand through Jess’ long, untamed hair, silently encouraging her.

“Are you still gonna try to escape?” Jess asked out of the blue.

Ashley gritted her teeth as the creature thrashed again. Jess immediately rubbed the sore area and cooed to soothe the fetus within.

“I’m going to try, yeah.”

Jess frowned. “I tried every possible way to get out of here. It just made things more difficult.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to give up,” Ashley stubbornly replied. “I’m not just gonna stay down here and make babies for the rest of my life.”

Jess laid a few light kisses on Ashley’s swollen belly. “I get how you feel,” she said afterward. “I was the same way. But as you have more of them you’ll change your mind. You’ll be groomed into a perfect little breeding machine, just like they want. Just like me. Eventually you’ll be making so many babies you won’t have time to even think about escaping.”

“No, that’s not – that’s not true. You should be trying to encourage me! I can save us both!”

Jess smiled as she laid her head on Ashley’s bosom again. “There’s no saving us. The only thing I can do for you is to try to make your fate easier for you to accept, which is what I’m doing.”

Confusing the moment even further, Jess ran a hand down between Ashley’s legs and began massaging her there. Ashley resisted. “Why are you trying to make me give up?”

“Because it took me months to accept it, and those months were hell.” Jess’ free hand caressed one of Ashley’s oddly sore breasts. “I’m just trying to save you the agony.”

Her tone carried a heavy weight of hopelessness, of acquiescence. Ash could only imagine the horror she’d been through. Living down here for who knew how long with only the company of monsters, having to look at a constant reminder that her best friend was dead, and that she died horribly for that matter. She imagined it would be easy to give up under such circumstances. The fact that Jess had apparently held out hope even for a few months before giving in was impressive.

Jess’ hands on her naked, vulnerable flesh felt so good. Before she could rationalize the thought she had leaned into Jess, giving the other girl a better angle. Jess seemed pleased with that.

“The pregnancies only last a day or two,” she said. She continued to tease Ash down below with her fingers. “Soon you’ll be giving birth to your first little one. It’ll hide for a while, but when it’s all grown – only takes a day or so, since they don’t live all that long – it’ll come back to you. It’ll know you’re its mother. It’ll take care of you, and then help you when it’s time for you to be impregnated again. And you’ll love the little monster, because it messed with your hormones so now your body sees it as your biological child and wants to take care of it.” Jess ran a thumb over one of Ashley’s hardening nipples. “You might lactate for a while. I did.”

“Stop...I don’t want to think like that.” Ashley gasped as Jess placed her mouth over an erect nipple and started suckling.

The alien inside her shifted yet again, but this time it wasn’t painful. Ashley found herself wondering if this was how normal babies felt when they were in your womb. It was strangely almost comforting, in a way – her body knew exactly how to house and have a baby properly. How to keep it safe and comfortable until she could give birth to it and take care of it herself…

She shook away those thoughts, and found Jess smiling up at her from her suckling position. “How do you feel?” Jess asked, pulling her mouth off Ashley just long enough to form the question.

Ashley took a few deep breaths. “I think it’s doing that thing you said. Making me feel…weird about it. Like it’s my own or something.” She wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. “It’s not. I know it’s not. It’s a monster.” She gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the pleasant warmth pulsing through her with every movement of her unborn chi – parasite. Monster. Whatever it was. Not a child.

“You’ll make a good Mommy to the babies,” Jess purred. “It’s not a bad life, really…you get fucked, you house the baby inside you for a couple days, then it works its way out and becomes your loyal servant. Rinse and repeat…over and over.”

Jess’ hands moved to massage Ashley’s stomach – had it grown larger? Ashley let out an involuntary moan as the warmth spread all through her body.

“It won’t be so scary for you. I’ll be here to help you through it.”

“Stop,” Ashley pleaded as she drew away from Jess. “I know you think you’re trying to help, but I don’t want to just accept this. I want to get out. I want to go back to my family. Please, Jess. You have to understand.”

Jess hesitated.

 _Maybe she’ll actually listen to me._ Thinking clearly was becoming difficult – she was consumed by bizarre, intrusive thoughts that must have been a result of the hormone shift Jess had mentioned. Jess’ hands and mouth had felt so good on her pregnant belly. It all felt so good. Being pregnant felt so…

Clearing the thoughts away, Ash pressed on. “My parents are both explorers. I was raised investigating unfamiliar places. If anyone can figure a way out of here, it’s probably me.”

Jess drew back a little. Her mellow green eyes fixed on Ashley’s.

Ashley drew in a nervous breath. “Don’t you want to at least _try_ to get out of here? You could go back home to your parents. You could make sure your best friend’s family knows what happened to her so they’re not just wondering forever. You could return to earth and…do whatever you’d want to do there.”

Jess bit her lip.

“Was there anything you wanted to do on Earth that you never got to do?”

“…I wanted to go to modeling school.”

“You could still do that.”

“Oh, yeah, right.” She gestured downward at her chubby body and her stomach covered in stretch marks. “I’m sure they’d accept someone who’s had, like, two hundred kids, and has the body to show for it.”

“There are plenty of alternative agencies out there. You could still do it.” Ashley tried not to let her desperation leak into her voice. If she were to have any hope of getting out of here, she was going to need Jess’ help. Or at the very least, her allegiance. The aliens most likely couldn’t understand what she was planning, but if Jess was against her she could easily convey to them that Ashley was a threat. “And besides, don’t you want to see your parents again?”

Jess folded her arms. “I…it’s been so long. They must think I’m dead.”

“Imagine if you could surprise them and come home alive? How overjoyed they’d be to see their little girl again?”

Jess remained silent for a long time. Ashley struggled to stay focused on the topic at hand. _Stay and take care of your baby,_ her brain urged her _. It will need you. It will need its mother – **Stop. It’s not my baby, and I’m not its mother.**_

After staring at the floor for a while, Jess finally lifted her eyes. “I don’t want to get my hopes up. They always just get crushed again.”

Before Ashley could argue her point any further an adult alien dropped down from a hole in the room’s high “ceiling”.

Jess sat up straight. “What are you doing here?”

The creature grabbed Jess by the wrist, just as it had done to Ashley earlier, and pulled her to her feet. It then picked her up and tossed her over one of its bony shoulders.

“Oh, is it time already?” Jess asked, her voice lacking any enthusiasm. “Guess I was distracted.”

The creature started to lope off with her, but Jess stopped it. “Bring her.” She pointed at Ashley. “I want her to see it’s not that bad.”

The alien scooped Ashley up with no effort whatsoever. Too terrified to fight back, Ashley’s body froze up as the creature carried her and Jess back into the breeding chamber.


	2. Mother's Love

Ashley watched as Jess’ “children” mounted her to the wall in front of one of the queen’s eggs, the same position Ashley had awakened in earlier.

One of the aliens left the chamber, but returned quickly. It held one wet, sticky hand over Jess’ mouth and nose. Jess inhaled deeply. Once the creature stepped back from her Jess nodded over at Ashley. Ash tried to back away, but found the entry way guarded by several aliens. The lead adult pressed its strange, cold hand up against her face. Ashley at first held her breath out of sheer disgust. The creature seemed aware of what she was doing, and simply waited. When Ashley was finally forced to draw breath she took in the stench of something musky and carnal. It smelled horrible, yet for some reason she inhaled it several times. It made her head spin and her loins dampen. She stumbled back from the creature, feeling mildly drugged.

“That’s the queen’s pheromones,” Jess said. “I’ve found that it makes accepting everything just a little bit easier. Do you feel like that?”

Ashley nodded, still in a daze. Her right hand absently stroked her stomach, where her baby squirmed excitedly.

“Yeah. I feel the same way.” Jess spread her legs as the alien stuck her more firmly to the wall with its strange resinous secretions. “I won’t be able to talk now, but stay and watch. You’ll see it’s not so bad.” As soon as Jess finished her sentence the creature bound her mouth with its secreted substance. She nodded again at Ashley, perhaps in an attempt at reassurance.

Ashley could have fled once the aliens left – but she didn’t. Morbid curiosity rooted her to the spot as she watched and waited for the egg to “hatch”.

It only took a few minutes. A yellow-gray spidery creature identical to the first one lunged at Jess. It first searched her face, then eventually sought her lower half. Just like with Ashley, it wrapped itself around Jess’ thighs and practically melded with her flesh. Jess lolled her head back and moaned through her pseudo-muzzle as the creature thrust its appendage up inside her.

As it was pumping and pulsating to get deep enough inside for a successful implantation, Ashley decided to get a little closer. Jess was too lost in pleasure to really notice her proximity.

Ashley reached out and hesitantly brushed the backside of the creature with her fingertips. It felt cold and a little slimy. Upon being touched the creature clenched. Jess made a small sound as it tightened the grip of its long tail around one of her thighs.

Not wanting to piss the creature off, but still terribly curious, Ashley moved her fingers to Jess’ abdomen, where she could feel the alien pumping inside her. Giving her another baby. She had so many babies. _She must be so happy._

That last thought bothered her, but not as much as it probably should have. Babies made people happy, right? People loved babies. Jess was certainly happy with them. Ashley was, too. Just the thought of birthing her own little life form filled her with an usual giddiness.

A sudden pain surged through her body and woke her from her pheromone-induced high. She cried out and collapsed to her knees.

Jess’ eyes flew open. She watched Ashley with a look of concern.

Something was on the move inside her. Getting ready to break free. Ashley fell onto her side on the rocky floor, and her legs spread nearly of their own volition.

Jess said something, but beneath her facial restraints it was indistinguishable.

Ashley arched her back as something plowed its way through her lower body. Another agonizing pain – perhaps a contraction – shot through her. By instinct alone she managed to push until something emerged from her body. It was white and serpentine, just like the thing Jess had given birth to.

Ashley sat up just enough to catch a glimpse of it. “M-my…”

She reached shakily for it. Before she could make contact, it slithered away and disappeared into the deeper nest.

“No!” Ashley staggered to her feet, whipping her head around. “Where did it go?”

Jess tried to say something again, but the creature attached to her began to deposit her new embryo. She shuddered and moaned.

“Where’s my…baby…” Ashley stumbled through the dark room, searching desperately for it. As she did so she remembered what Jess had said earlier. _It’ll hide for a while, but when it’s all grown – only takes a day or so, since they don’t live all that long – it’ll come back to you._ But Ashley didn’t want it to hide. She wanted her child. She wanted to hold it, to caress it and feed it from her bosom, which was already beginning to feel strangely heavy and swollen.

Jess said the pregnancies usually took “a day or two”. This one hadn’t even taken one full day. Ash had been cheated out of most of the joy of bonding with her sweet child in utero.

“I want another one,” she said aloud.

Jess was still lost in her haze of pleasure. While she was out of it Ashley approached an un-hatched egg next to the one impregnating Jess. She rubbed herself briefly against its cold, damp exterior. Then, still giddy from the pheromone high, she decided to climb on top of it and straddle it. Her hips gyrated as she ground herself against its surface.

She felt it unfurl beneath her.

“I want to feel it again.” Her tone was airy, dreamlike. The pheromones of the queen still clouded her thoughts. She wanted to serve the queen. She wanted to help her and Jess make lots of babies.

It didn’t take long for the alien inside the egg to clamber out and latch itself on to her welcoming body. She giggled as she felt it slide up inside her and begin impregnating her anew. “Thank you…” she whispered to the strange creature, as it deposited a new child inside of her. “I’ll be a good Mommy.”

* * *

 

Ashley reclined against a stack of Weyland-Yutani emergency pillows as her first two children licked and tended to their yet-unborn third sibling.

Jess was a few feet away from her. As usual, she had an entire arsenal of creatures tending to her.

“I can’t tell if I’ve been brainwashed or if this really isn’t so bad,” Ashley said at one point.

“Nah, we’ve definitely been messed with.” Jess patted one of her younger children on the hand as it attempted to lick her breasts. “I feel like I should be sorry I helped you get messed up so fast, but I’m really not. I mean, I suffered for months before I finally embraced it. You only dealt with that for a few days.”

Ashley shuddered as her firstborn curiously investigated the milk seeping from her breasts.

“My life before was so complicated.” Jess inhaled sharply as one of the aliens stuck a curious finger up inside her. “Now everything is much simpler. I can’t really think about anything but my life right now. And it’s nice.”

“Yeah. It kind of is.”

“When you’re–” Jess sucked in a breath as the alien shoved its finger deeper inside and probed inquisitively about – “when you’re ready, maybe you can try having two inside you at once. The hormone rush is insane. I was, like, over the moon happy the whole time. I think the aliens like that, because then I went along with everything. They like us nice and dopey and agreeable. Less work for them, and then we’re not a threat.”

“Well, I’m already most of the way there.” Ashley laughed a little. “Might as well go all the way, I guess.”

Jess reached over and took Ashley’s hand in hers. Ashley noticed a few tiny flecks of remnant nail polish on Jess’ fingernails. A small but effective reminder of the world outside the hive. Ashley’s mind began to wander back. A rogue thought crossed her mind of her parents on the surface, and how they must be so worried for her, but before she could think on it too much her brain shut down every thought but the chemically-induced voice in her head that had appeared with her first pregnancy. _You’re property of the hive now. You live to breed and serve them. Nothing else is important._

“Nothing else is important,” she murmured to herself.

Jess yawned. “Yep.”

* * *

 

Ashley had no idea how much time passed down in the underground hive she now called her home. It seemed as though she were constantly pumping out babies, and the population of the nest was swelling exponentially. She gained quite a bit of weight from the aliens feeding her stolen food and mysterious meat that she didn’t question. Aside from her birthing “job” she spent most of her days lounging about with Jess, chatting idly about meaningless topics, speculating on the future of the hive, or pleasuring each other sexually (typically initiated by Jess). There wasn’t much else to do.

One day, however, Ashley slipped out with a thought that hadn’t crossed her mind in some time. “What if the aliens attack the colony at some point?”

Jess opened her eyes. Apparently she’d been nodding off. “Hm?”

“What if the aliens hurt our families and friends at some point?”

Jess blinked. “I…I don’t know. We’re not supposed to care about that anymore, I don’t think.”

“Well I still do.”

Jess looked over at her. “My parents probably stopped looking for me a long time ago. The only other person I had was my best friend.”

Ashley exhaled, and rubbed her moving stomach. “My best friend is still on Earth. He’ll never know what happened to me.”

“Your best friend is a boy?”

“Yeah.”

Jess snickered. “Wow. I can barely even stand to be around most guys. No offense to your friend.”

Ashley could feel her body trying to shift her attention away from the topic. _Think about the baby. Think about the good of the hive, and all your children._

She shook her head. _No. I want to think about other things. You can’t control me all the time._

“I…I liked him a lot.” She struggled to keep her thoughts coherent. “I thought maybe, eventually, he’d either come join me up here, or I’d go back down there. I thought that maybe after not seeing me for a long time, he would feel different about me. Different than just a friend, I mean.”

“Ohh. I get it.” Jess nodded sagely. “You put up with him because you _liked_ him.”

Ashley shrugged. Her pink cheeks belied any denial she could have vocalized.

Jess laid an idle hand on her stomach. “I feel like I shouldn’t be thinking about this.”

“No, you should. We both should.” Ash took her hands off her pregnant belly, trying not to let her thoughts return to it. “Just because we’re here doesn’t mean we have to forget the past. …Or what could still be our future.”

Jess nodded slowly. “You’re right.” She stared up at the ceiling for a few quiet moments. Then she let out a deep sigh. “I was in love with her.”

Ashley stared over at her. “With your best friend?”

“Mhm.”

It all made sense then. “Is that why you’re so into having babies with her genetic material in them?”

“Well I mean…it doesn’t make me _not_ want to have them. If that makes sense.”

Ashley clutched at the blanket beneath her, desperate for some sort of creature comfort. “So this whole thing has a lot of deeper meaning to you. Raising the kids, helping the queen…”

Jess made a small, noncommittal noise in response.

“You feel like you’re having a family with your friend.”

Jess turned away. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Ashley sat up straight and tall, facing Jess even though Jess was looking away. “The queen isn’t your friend.”

Jess tensed. “I know that.”

“These things aren’t your friend’s offspring. She wouldn’t want this for you.”

“You don’t know what she would want.”

“These creatures _killed_ her.”

“Shut up! I know that!” Jess whipped around and snarled at her.

“If we stay here we’re just gonna make more and more of these monsters, and they’re going to keep kidnapping humans and either make them do the stuff we have to do for them, or do what they did to your friend.”

“T-that’s not true. These ones are peaceful. Now that they’ve figured out how to breed us they don’t need to keep hunting and killing humans.”

“What happens when we can’t give them any more babies? You think they’re gonna just keep us around? Wasting their resources?”

“…I’m their mother.” Jess sounded uncertain of her own words. “They wouldn’t hurt me. They – they love me.”

As if to prove her point, Jess whistled loudly. Soon half a dozen aliens bounded into the room and began tending to her. Jess pointed over at Ashley, sending two of them over to her. They immediately began tending to her as well.

Ashley fought to keep her thoughts focused, but eventually lost herself once again as she caressed her stomach and connected with the beautiful new organism growing inside of her.

* * *

 

What felt like a lifetime passed down in that nest. Ashley still dreamed occasionally of the world above, but upon waking she would soon forget her muddied dreams.

They had no access to mirrors, but Ashley could gauge from Jess’ face, which had matured somewhat in their time together, that they’d been denizens of this ungodly place for quite some time now.

One day (or perhaps night – who could tell on LV-426), Ash woke to an unusual smell permeating the hive. She sat up and sniffed the air. “Jess?”

Jess opened one groggy eye. “What?”

“Do you smell something?”

Jess sniffed as well. “Yeah, I do. Smells like…”

“Smoke.”

They heard a screech in the distance.

Jess was on her feet in seconds, running for the entrance to their chamber. Ashley followed her. Upon reaching where the doorway usually was, however, they found it blocked it off by thick alien goo.

“What? They sealed us in here?” Ashley ran her hands over the makeshift door. It was sealed up tight.

“Something must be wrong. They wouldn’t do this otherwise.” Jess tried to push her way through it. It gave slightly, but did not tear or break.

They heard another screech, and then they heard something else. Voices.

 _Spread out! We have to get them all!_ A female voice barked orders at, presumably, other humans.

“Oh my God, are we being rescued?” Ashley pounded on the goo as best she could. “Help! We’re in here!”

Jess watched Ashley, but refrained from helping her. Though she did not voice any dissent Ash could see the conflicted emotion on her face.

 _Did you hear something?_ Another human voice.

“Help!!” Ashley threw herself against the goo door.

 _Stand back!_ The first voice was closer now.

Ashley and Jess backed away from the makeshift door. Suddenly the resinous substance began to melt. It fell away in molten, gloppy chunks, revealing a human in head-to-toe camouflage and a thick black vest wielding a flamethrower.

They lifted their helmet to reveal a young woman with bits of blonde hair poking out from beneath it. “There are humans down here!” She called out to another armed person. The person hurried over and lifted their helmet as well, revealing a bronze-skinned woman with dark brown hair.

“Are you all right?” the blonde asked them. As she spoke she made a point of avoiding staring at either of them. Ashley had gotten so used to being naked that it barely even fazed her anymore – she had almost forgotten normal humans weren’t accustomed to it.

“We’re okay,” Ash replied. “Who are you?”

“Colonial marines.” The brunette glanced about their chamber. Then her eyes settled on Ashley’s pregnant stomach. She and the blonde exchanged a look. The blonde pulled a device from one of her uniform’s pockets and held it up to Ashley’s belly. It beeped furiously. They then moved it over to Jess, where it beeped as well.

“They’re impregnated,” the brunette said.

An alien screeched from another chamber. A blast of fire startled Ash and Jess. A male human soon emerged from the other room, grinning and wielding a massive flamethrower. “Yeah, you like that?” He called behind him as he pumped his weapon again, letting off a small plume of flame.

“Munroe, quit being an idiot.” The blonde turned to him. “Did you get the rest?”

“Hell yeah I did.”

Ashley felt a strange, uncomfortable emotional stirring at the news. Her babies were all… _no._ She fought the thoughts with all she had. _You’re being rescued. Don’t think about the hive._

“You killed them?” Jess’ face went pale. “All of them?”

“ _All_ of ‘em.” The guy, Munroe, sauntered over to the girls. As soon as he caught sight of Jess and Ashley he immediately turned his eyes away. “Whoa, uh, what’s going on here?”

“They’re impregnated,” the brunette repeated. Her tone hadn’t changed. “They’ve got them inside.”

“Shit.” Munroe rested his weapon on his shoulder, still trying to keep his eyes averted. “Fuck.”

“We’re not impregnated like the usual method.” Ashley placed a hand on her stomach. Her current pregnancy was nearly a full day in. She and Jess were on the same birthing schedule now, so they were likely to be having their latest children by the end of the day. “It doesn’t kill us. We’ve done it before.” She cast a glance over to Jess, who had retreated into herself and seemed only minimally aware of the conversation happening around her.

“You’ve done it before?” The blonde cocked a brow. “Really?”

“I’ve _never_ heard of someone surviving a facehugger impregnation.” The brunette was steadfast. “If we bring them to the surface we’ll be bringing those things with them, and they probably won’t even survive.”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t _try_ to save them,” the blonde responded. “This girl says she’s survived it before. Let’s give her a chance to explain herself.”

Suddenly feeling self-conscious of everyone staring at her, Ashley knelt down and scooped up an emergency blanket. She shrugged it over her shoulders, and tried to make eye contact with Jess in the process. Jess was angled away from everyone else, including Ash, and would not look at her.

“Jess says the queen of this hive was born from her friend, and her friend was really smart, so the queen inherited her intelligence. I guess she figured out that impregnating humans via, um, our actual reproductive systems was more efficient than killing us with one birth. So we became, like, breeding stock for the hive…we’ve had hundreds of babies. She lays the eggs, and we have the babies, and…”

She noticed the marines were all staring at her with wide eyes.

“I know it sounds totally crazy, but I swear–”

The blonde cut her off. “This hive has a queen?”

“Oh, um, yeah.”

The blonde looked to Munroe. “Did you kill any queens?”

He shook his head.

A guttural roar rang through the caverns. Ashley noticed Jess smile to herself.

“Fuck. Fuck!” Munroe readied his flamethrower. The two female marines drew weapons of their own. “Fucking queens…”

In all Ashley’s presumed months of living in the alien nest she had never once seen the queen leave her chamber. Her egg sac was huge and cumbersome, and it prevented her from moving very much.

She learned that day that the queen’s egg sac was apparently detachable. Without it she was free as a bird.

The gigantic creature burst through the doorway of the main cavern, her four arms extended and her massive mouth hanging wide open. She swung her head from Ash and Jess over to the trembling marines.

Suddenly bursting back to life, Jess ran to her. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”

The marines stared at her in disbelief. “She’s all kinds of messed up right now,” Ash whispered. Then, louder, she said, “Jess, stay away from her!”

“I’m so sorry this all happened.” Jess gazed up at the queen. “I’ll make more babies. We’ll make more.”

The queen studied Jess. Then she lifted her giant head toward the marines.

With a single swipe her tail sent all five humans crashing into the nearest wall.

Jess was the first to recover. “No, no!” she cried as she staggered to her feet and ran back to the queen’s side. “We didn’t send them! I would never do this to you!”

The queen lashed at her again. This time the brunette marine was ready. She drenched the queen in a blast of white-hot fire. The queen shrieked and drew back.

“Stop!” Jess made one more attempt to approach the queen. “D-don’t you remember me, Emily? It’s me!  It’s Jessica!”

“Emily?” Ashley murmured. “…Wait a minute, was your friend Emily Davis? The girl who went missing all those years ago?”

“Emily Davis?” Munroe leaned over to the other two marines and whispered, “There’s still a huge reward for anyone who finds any evidence of what happened to her.”

The trio exchanged glances. Ashley was about to ask them if that moment was really the time to be talking monetary rewards, but she didn’t get a chance – the queen brought her heavy tail down on the marines. Munroe got the brunt of the strike. He was knocked to the ground. He clutched his exposed face as blood welled between his fingers. “Fucking damn it! Just kill that thing!”

The brunette marine got to her feet and lifted her flamethrower.

“Noo!!” Jess threw herself on the queen. “Please!!”

The queen grabbed her in one of her hands. She brought Jess to her mouth, then opened her massive jaws.

“Jess!” Ashley watched in horror as the monster’s strings of drool dripped down onto a petrified Jess. The queen’s second mouth extended out toward the helpless human she held.

A sudden burst of fire lit up the room. The queen shrieked and dropped Jess as her backside was torched. Jess tumbled toward the rocky cavern floor. Ashley ran for her and attempted to catch her, which ended in the two of them smashing to the ground as Jess landed on Ashley.

The brunette marine’s stream of flame did not relent. The queen screeched in pain and attempted to swing her tail at them again. Her aim that time was poor. The other two marines unleashed fiery hell upon her as well.

Ashley held Jess as she cried and watched helplessly. The queen crawled toward them, emitting a cry that was disturbingly human.

“Keep it up!” the brunette shouted. “Her exo’s melting.”

Jess buried her face in Ashley’s chest. Ashley stroked her hair, watched the queen slowly wither and die under the intense heat of three military-grade flamethrowers. It took an agonizingly long time and practically choked them out with smoke, but finally, she was dead.

The humans watched in silence as the queen alien’s melted exoskeleton and exposed innards smoldered, releasing a putrid burned stench into the air.

Eventually the marines began issuing orders amongst themselves. “Go exterminate the last of the eggs,” Ashley heard the brunette tell Munroe. He hurried off toward the queen’s former chamber.

The blonde knelt down beside Jess and Ashley. “We’re going to take you somewhere where they’ll help you, okay? We’re not leaving you down here.”

Jess refused to lift her head from Ashley’s chest, where it was buried. “Okay,” Ashley answered for her. “Thank you.”

The blonde frowned down at Jess. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what was going on with you and the creatures here, but if the queen really did come from your friend then we can bring a sample back to her family. They can test for her DNA and they’ll finally know for sure what happened to her.”

Jess finally lifted her face just the tiniest bit, settling her eyes upon the blonde marine.

“They…would probably like to know that, huh.” Her voice was low and a little shaky, but it didn’t seem to hold that slightly crazed note it had when she was talking to the queen.

Ashley could understand Jess’ hesitation – her emotions were conflicted as well. They had spent months, maybe longer, giving birth to the inhabitants of this hive, only for them to be slaughtered in a single day. It was difficult to separate her true feelings from the artificial ones caused by hormone alterations. But then she thought of her family, her real family, and how overjoyed they would be to discover she was alive. She also thought of her best friend back on Earth. She would love to see him again. Those thoughts won out in the end.

“Come on, Jess.” She took the other girl’s hand and gingerly squeezed it. “We should go back with them. There’s no point in staying here.”

Jess nodded. “You’re right. We – we should go.”

Ashley helped her up. Jess leaned noticeably on her for support, probably more than she had to. The brunette marine tossed Jess a blanket. Jess wrapped it around herself. She and Ashley remained inseparable as the marines led them to the rope ladder they’d used to enter the nest.

 


	3. Epilogue: The Perfect Organism

_“We’ve finally managed to create a viable clone. There were missing pieces in her DNA, but we were able to fill in matching proteins from the queen to construct an organism capable of surviving to maturity.”_

_“But she’s…she’s still our daughter, right?”_

Emily’s eyes slowly peeled open. Everything around her was muffled and blurry – she was separated from her surroundings by thick glass and some sort of fluid suspending her.

Her mind was a jumble of memories, instincts, and urges. Her memories told her she was called Emily. She was Emily, and Emily had many, many children. An entire hive.

 _“She’s awake!”_ a decidedly male voice said. Two figures peered in at her.

Her memories told her these humans had given birth to her. Beyond that they were not much else – they had not cared for her themselves.

_“Open the tank. We want to talk to her.”_

_“Mrs. Davis, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We don’t know how stable she is–”_

_“Let us talk to her.”_ The voice of her father.

_“…All right.”_

Suddenly the fluid was draining from the tank. The glass lowered around her. Emily was free.

“Emily, do you remember us?” her father immediately asked. No greeting, no warmth to his tone.

Emily clicked her tongue. An affirmative.

“Emily.” This time it was her mother who spoke. “Answer us.”

Emily clicked her tongue again, and this time also emitted a low growl.

Her father cast a glare over at a dark-skinned young man in a lab coat. “I thought you said she’d be normal.”

“I – I said ‘viable’. This is still a highly experimental procedure, Mr. Davis. Emily is actually our first specimen to survive it.”

Emily flicked her gaze from the scientist to her parents and back again. A memory permeated the forefront of her thoughts. A name, and a face…

“Jessica,” Emily growled. Jessica was carrying her brood. Her and that other girl…but Jessica…she had to know where Jessica was. She had to find her.

“Jessica?” Her mother drew back a little, seeming surprised. “You remember her?”

Emily lunged forward. Her parents leaped back, in obvious fear of her. The sensation of her bare hands and feet on the cold floor was strange – her feet were smaller and softer than she remembered, and she was missing a set of arms. These humans, they had done something to her. Captured her and made her weak.

“Stay still!” The scientist’s voice quivered even as he attempted to sound bold. Emily pushed past him and bounded for the nearest exist. The door was sealed tight. It seemed to require some sort of keycard.

“Emily! Get back here!” Her father’s shouting voice sent a shudder through her. She attempted to swing her tail and knock the humans away, but found she had no tail with which to do so. So instead she turned and pounced on him, going straight for the throat. She no longer had claws or a serrated tail, and she was much smaller now due to whatever these humans had done to her, but she could still do damage. Quite a bit, in fact. Her father was down before the other humans could even formulate a reaction. And she was upon them just as quickly.

It didn’t take long for her to root out the keycard from the scientist’s lab coat pocket. She clumsily swiped it in the lock. The door opened.

She had to find the two humans who were gestating the last of her brood. Had to make sure no terrible fate befell them like it befell her hundreds of children. Especially Jessica…her most loyal and trusted companion…

It didn’t take long for her to fight her way to freedom from the colony lab. She burst out into the dark of LV-426’s night and sniffed the air. They weren’t far. She could still smell her own pheromones on them.

Their lingering scent, as well as vague memories of the colony from another time in her strange life, guided Emily through the darkness. She would find them soon enough.


End file.
